Surgical dilators are generally used to insert medical devices at a target location within a body. Dilators pierce through the skin and enable the placement of the medical devices in proximity to a nerve or tissue. Dilators are frequently used with a hollow tube shaped sheath that envelops the dilator. A dilator and a sheath when packaged and sold together are frequently referred to as an Introducer Set and such a set can also include a guidewire, which slides through the hollow center of the dilator. These dilators utilize a long tapered tip for penetrating the tissue. Such tips have straight tapers with acute angles with respect to the longitudinal axis of the dilator, such as 5 to 10 degrees. The length of the tapered tip is typically at least several times larger than the outside diameter of the dilator, in order to minimize the insertion force needed to insert the dilator into living tissue. After insertion of the dilator tip to the desired location in the tissue of a body, the dilator is retracted and the sheath remains in position to provide a passageway for insertion of an object, such as a medical device, through the sheath to position the object at the desired location within the tissue. Due to the long tapered tip of a typical dilator, the distance between the distal end of the tapered tip and the sheath is undesirably large which can result in an imprecise placement of a medical device at a target location during insertion. One way to improve the precision of placement of a medical device with a dilator is to use a dilator with a shorter tapered tip, but using such a dilator requires a larger insertion force for the dilator as it enters into the tissue, which could cause tissue damage. Thus, there is a need for a dilator that provides a minimal distance between the distal end of the tip and the sheath and which also reduces the insertion force during penetration.